morning in Furen Lodge
this is our room - the snowy owl
very delicious home-made jam
let's have breakfast together - he Eurasian Nuthatch
Great Spotted Woodpecker
my only photo (?) of Eurasian Tree Sparrow of this trip
Marsh Tit is very common but not easy to get a good photo
and so the Eurasian Nuthatch
After breakfast, we moved to the Ochiishi Harbor for our first boat trip.
Black-eared Kite
on the way to harbor, I found my first owl lifer....
a bird mobbed by Large-billed Crow, which I initially identified as a harrier
but it was clear not when I watched through my binos, this should be a Short-eared Owl!
After the owl, we arrived the harbor and got prepared for the boat trip.
a welcoming Harlequin Duck
here we are
the ticket, was 8000JPY, more information can be found here: http://www.ochiishi-cruising.com/
The cruise offered us good chances seeing the seaducks, gull, and especially the alcids. Sky was clear with strong sunlight, but so as the wind.. Photographing of bird was always challenging in this rough condition.
Slaty-backed Gull
Black Scoter
a group of Harlequin Duck
Long-tailed Duck, a female
and a male
the ducks always took off before the boat approaching
Long-tailed Duck is always my favorite target
like the Black Scoter, the Long-tailed Duck also showing black under and upperwings
when you see something with contrasting wings, maybe a good duck, like this Siberian Scoter
beside ducks, goose may also be seen here. Brent - one of my lifer
Peregrine Falcon chasing an eagle
hovering Eastern Buzzard
Pelagic Cormorant
loon could be seen in flight too, a Red-throated Loon maybe (?)
another one, this one was more clearly Red-throated Loon
Our main target of this cruise was alcid. However, alcids are far more difficult to be identified than we expect. Especially when you wanna identify to specific subspecies in the Pigeon Guillemot complex. For the molting Pigeon, they can be look very similar to Spectacled Guillemot too. We saw both species in this cruise with different variations. (please let me know if the following photos are wrong ID!)
Least Auklet - the commonest but also the most difficult to take a 'proper shot'
also the easiest to ID - Least Auklet, they are really small in size!
Crested Auklet - they have a cute small tuft
Crested Auklet is the least commonest in this cruise
another Crested Auklet
Ancient Murrelet - not a lifer, but my best pic till now
Spectacled Guillemot - the eyering patch is very prominent
Spectacled Guillemot
size of eye patch also differs among individual
summer plumage is similar to Pigeon Guillemot but the eyering patch is much more prominent
to me, Spectacled in flight show very dark upperwing and large white rear flanks, not sure if this is a useful field features or not
Pigeon Guillemot - the problematic species to us. This shows a large white wing patch, maybe columba (?)
Pigeon Guillemot - an intermediate one, kaiurka (?)
same individual, the white wing patch is not as large as the previous
same individual in flight
Pigeon Guillemot - this shows little white on wing, a snowi (?)
and this one, clearly no white on the wing but a rather prominent eyering. If this one is a Pigeon Guillemot, then it should be snowi
After the cruise, we headed to Cape Nosappu for seawatching, where also provided me to look for the Red-faced Cormorant. I saw one there in flight without photos, and plenty flying Pelagic..
but lunch before going
my favorite
Cape Nosappu
Pelagic Cormorant and Harlequin Duck
Pelagic Cormorant
Sea Otter again!
Before back to the Lodge, we tried one more time for the owl at the same spot this night.
and we succeeded! We saw three birds there. The owls are very massive and they called each other in different call types. We never imagine we could tick this major target just in Day 3, before going to Rausu!
we enjoyed the call (also song?) of both Blakiston's Fish Owl under moonlight
the wonderful dinner by Take-san was no doubt a celebration (also the beer!)
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